Steven Sayles – Sheffield

September 2017

Sheffield man jailed for breaching sexual harm prevention order

A Sheffield man has been jailed for nine months, after admitting to several breaches of a sexual harm prevention order.

Steven Sayles was sentenced to eight years in prison in 2010 for a string of sex offences, and was also made the subject of a sexual harm prevention order at that time.

Sexual harm prevention orders are imposed in order to protect the public from sexual harm by restricting the behaviour of offenders through the implementation of a number of conditions including being prohibited from living with a child under the age of 18 and owning a recording device, without declaring it to the police.

Prosecuting, Katherine Goddard, told Sheffield Crown Court: “The case involved the taking of footage in the count relating to rape. It was for this reason that the Crown asked that the order prohibit the defendant from possessing a camera device.”

Ms Goddard explained how Sayles’ breaches were carried out after he formed a new relationship with a Sheffield mum after being released from prison in 2013. In 2015, Sayles moved in with the woman and her two children, a girl aged between 15 and 16-years-old and a boy who was ‘aged younger than his sister’.

Sayles, of Stubbin Lane, Firth Park failed to inform police that he had changed address, or that he had begun living with his partner and her children. His other breaches involved being away from the home address for more than a week when he went on holiday with the woman and her family, and failing to notify the police he owned a mobile phone with a camera.

Ms Goddard told the court Sayles is not believed to have repeated any of the same behaviour that led to him being jailed for sex offences seven years ago.

The 48-year-old made no comment in police interview, but pleaded guilty to the breaches at Sheffield Crown Court today, when his trial was due to start

Sentencing him to nine months in prison, Recorder Tim Elliott QC told Sayles: “You knew full well you had a duty to comply with the requirements, and you breached them.

“And for two years you told lies which could have had an effect on people.”